Despite vanishing population, grouse hunting continues in Ohio
The season for hunting grouse began mid-month for those still willing to look for one.
There exists a suggestion implicit in the small and vanishing population that grouse, male and female, have been having a problem finding each other. It’s mathematics: fewer grouse, fewer opportunities to make more grouse.
In short, grouse coupling hasn’t risen to furious spring breaker levels within Ohio’s woodlands for many a year. Grouse drumming not so long ago provided a catchy beat for spring’s greening soundscape.
The grouse’s range in Ohio never stretched beyond the Appalachian foothills extending from Ashtabula and Lake counties in the north to Brown and Highland counties in the south. Grouse drumming and flush rates as recorded by observers at sites historically known to hold grouse have dropped dramatically.
Drumming, for instance, was heard at about 40 of 100 grouse sites during spring in the early 1980s. By 2018, the number had plunged to low single digits. Meanwhile, flushes of grouse noted by hunters per 100 hours of stalking fell from about 170 in the early 1980s to fewer than 20 in 2018.
A lot of the blame for grouse ills gets dumped on habitat decline, which is no small factor.
Grouse need their trees somewhere between sapling size and less than mature. That loosely describes much of southeastern Ohio during the 20th century decades that it took forests felled during the previous century to grow back.
Other factors might be in play, but not settled definitively is what they are. One suspect is West Nile virus, an affliction that has killed innumerable North American birds since its arrival.
At any rate, one each day is all a hunter in Ohio is entitled to bag on public land through Nov. 26 and on private land through Jan. 1.
As for holding a grouse season absent an indisputably viable population of grouse, some hunters have been asking, why bother? Those wondering included some members of the Ohio Wildlife Council, an eight-person citizens panel meant to have a final say on the state’s hunting, fishing and trapping regulations.
A few council members suggested early this year that no grouse season take place this fall. The wildlife division rejected that notion. Council in August voted to reject a division counterproposal that would have shortened the season.
Still, hunting likely didn’t cause the grouse decline. On the other hand, continued hunting doesn’t seem likely to enhance the bird’s chances for a comeback.
Whether Ohio has enough grouse to keep targeting them or whether it’s decided they deserve special protection as a matter of promoting survival is a question experts will answer, probably sooner rather than in a distant future.
Parting shots
The youth small-game season for bunnies, pheasants and quail, where legal, continues through today and resumes Oct. 28-29. Bag limits are the same as during the regular small-game season that opens Nov. 3. … The first part of the split season for hunting goose, ducks, coots and mergansers opened Saturday in the South Zone, which includes most of central Ohio. Goose season runs through Oct. 29 and resumes Nov. 18. Duck season runs through Oct. 29 and resumes Dec. 9. … Woodcock hunting, which opened Oct. 13, continues through Nov. 26. … Hunters needing access to land on which to chase in-season game can look into the Ohio Landowner-Access Partnership. Details on how the program works can be found at wildohio.gov. … Through Tuesday, hunters had checked 19,858 deer. At a comparable date a year ago, the total was 25,963.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Despite vanishing population, grouse hunting continues in Ohio
